What developers for OS 6 and webkit need to know

RIM has released a few articles for developers, giving them a heads up on what is new for OS 6, and detailing what needs to be done to integrate with web-kit. Also releasing info for the Torch 9800, developers will get to see what is opened up for, what I hope will be some truly innovative, apps.

The BlackBerry Developers Blog says, "We are all very excited about the power that the new WebKit engine brings to the BlackBerry platform, and with such a major change, there were changes in the inner workings of our Widget packaging that needed to be taken into account. We also wanted to make sure that we provided developers with a mechanism so that they didn’t have to manage different sets of code to target both v5.0 and BlackBerry 6 devices."

A good example of one thing that needs to be addressed is the changes to SurePress events. According to the blog, "Touch screen does not utilize SurePress – to accommodate in-market apps supporting SurePress, a TouchEvent.DOWN event will also generate TouchEvent.CLICK and TouchEvent.UNCLICK events. So what would’ve previously been a DOWN / UP sequence on previous BlackBerry smartphones supporting touch now results in a DOWN / CLICK / UNCLICK / UP sequence, where the CLICK and UNCLICK events are generated following the DOWN event."

Get on over to the BlackBerry Developers Blog to find out more details, and start making your apps a whole new world of awesome.